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The good thing about painting a piece like this is that you can just remove the paint, or paint over the paint you don't like. It's not superfine like a tiny action figure, or super fragile. Don't be too afraid to work on it, if you are concerned about damaging it try working on an inconspicuous place first (is there an inside, for example?). Go in with confidence and don't let your inexperience hold you back, how else are you going to get experienced after all?

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

The good thing about painting a piece like this is that you can just remove the paint, or paint over the paint you don't like. It's not superfine like a tiny action figure, or super fragile. Don't be too afraid to work on it, if you are concerned about damaging it try working on an inconspicuous place first (is there an inside, for example?). Go in with confidence and don't let your inexperience hold you back, how else are you going to get experienced after all?

Zorg told me basically the same thing you did. The actual prop was painted rather sloppily, so there is room for error. I didn't want to come off as being afraid to work on it. I'm just very particular about the job I do on projects like this. It sounds stupid, but if someone makes a prop for me, I'm far more forgiving on mistakes than if I'm the one that makes the mistake. I think I can do the basic paint job fairly easily. The weathering I plan on doing a fair amount of experimenting to hopefully get it right when I paint the prop. I picked up the paints yesterday. I'm planning on going with a gloss white and "Stormtrooper" grey for the basic colors. I had looked at a light ivory, for that slightly yellowed look, but upon seeing it in the store, it was too yellow, so I went with the plain white. The grey was hard to find for some reason. Hobbytown was sold out of it and Hobby Lobby had just one vile left, so I guess it must be a fairly popular color.

Got a real surprise yesterday. My order from RS Propmasters showed up, which I wasn't expecting it for another week. I had an ESB stormtrooper helmet made as well as some ANH armor, basically the pieces I didn't have. It was Christmas in May for me. I'll post pics hopefully in a couple of days.

I think I understand, when you do it you want it to be absolutely right because your time is valuable to you and thus it "costs" more, you invest more of yourself than just paying another to do it, and the flip side is that you don't have a ton of experience so the "cost" doubles because you're learning the skill as you're going.

The ivory could be thinned or even mixed into the white, assuming you're going for a movie-accurate look. I don't have any skills here at all, so I'm just going on the info I've gleaned over the years from people who have done this stuff.

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

I think I understand, when you do it you want it to be absolutely right because your time is valuable to you and thus it "costs" more, you invest more of yourself than just paying another to do it, and the flip side is that you don't have a ton of experience so the "cost" doubles because you're learning the skill as you're going.

The ivory could be thinned or even mixed into the white, assuming you're going for a movie-accurate look. I don't have any skills here at all, so I'm just going on the info I've gleaned over the years from people who have done this stuff.

That could be part of it. I think its also how I view my mistakes. If I were to own a Da Vinci painting that he made an error on, it would still be cool because he was the one who made error. If I were to make a painting and made a mistake on it, everytime I would see it I would probably say "I should've been more careful." Maybe to put it simply, most people are their own harshest critic, and I think that applies to me.

I had thought about mixing the ivory with white, but I decided to go the simple route. I thought consistency could be an issue. The original prop was actually a straight white with grey weathering. The basic paint job will be movie accurate. The weathering will end up being my own take on it.

Now you know how Lucas feels when he views ANH, he doesn't see the genius, only the struggles and pains and mistakes. It saddens me to think he can't see the film everybody else enjoys.

I didn't realize it was straight white with gray, it looks so much more antique with the gray weathering, possibly because it's in a warm-toned setting as well. The more I look at images of the character, the more I'm sure you'll do fine because they didn't really do an outstanding job anyway, nothing you could do would be worse than what they did - they just dropped it white, then followed the contours with gray for accent, and then laid down a brownish gray weathering overspray.

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

I hadn't thought of that at all, but your right. He doesn't see a masterpiece that we saw, but all the flaws and shortcomings. Makes me think I should appreciate my accomplishments in life a little more. Over the years, I've kind of used my line of thought to help get me motivated. I don't like to pat myself on the back too much because I think that leads to complacency. But if I don't do that once in awhile, I'll never take pride in what I've done either.

CZ3 is primered and ready to paint. I'll take some pics of the stormtrooper helmet and armor tonight and hopefully post them tomorrow.

Here's my ESB Stormtrooper helmet by RSPropmasters. This one is made up of HDPE plastic exactly like the originals. It is basically the same plastic that they make milk jugs out of. I had them paint it up like the "patch helmet that they sold at Christie's auction a few years ago. They did a great job of gettiing all the little paint chips and paint smears in the proper places. I also how they didn't paint it a straight white, but a subtle off white, giving it an aged look. The level of surface details is astounding. I bought a PVC helmet from them last year and was impressed with the details on that. This is up on the next level. You can compare it with pic of the original and match up just about every detail. I tried to take a few pics that would show off some of detailing. An amazing piece.

Here's the rest of my PVC armor from RSPropmasters plus a pair of white leather disco boots I got off of ebay. Its great to own a complete set of ANH armor. This is something I've dreamed about since I was a kid. I was a little surprised to get the belt and thermal detonator. I thought I was going to have to order those seperate. The boots are supposed to be pretty close to what they actually used in the movies. They had manufactured them a few years for people who are trooping, but I thought I read somewhere that they are no longer making them.

Congrats on the helmet. FANTASTIC! My RS is also HDPE (their first edition) and is great. My first one #44 got lost in mail so they sent me their own replacement with #63

Very cool armor suit too! The only thing stopping me from getting a RS armor is the fact that they don't use acrylic capped ABS. I know back in the days they didn't use it, but since then plastics evolved and this is one of the things I'd like to see in an armor, thus protecting it better from yellowing. Unless I decide to go for a Sandtrooper...

The TK Boots are the best fan made trooper boots out there, except the real thing (which you would need to paint white and so on). There are also Caboots there, which are nice, but not as good - had both types and sold Caboots long ago.